Me and My Cat--Syntax Trees

{Updated on 26 October, 2014} {A colored syntax tree was added at the bottom}

Watch Elijah Wood reading Me and My Cat on YouTube.

Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins (screenshot from DVD).png

Elijah has played many roles, including Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings. If you have trouble understanding the story, this blog post from last year can help you.
Elijah Wood（伊莱贾·伍德）演過許多角色，包括魔戒電影三部曲的佛羅多·巴金斯。他在YouTube講 Me and My Cat。如果這篇故事聽不太懂，可以參考本部落格去年的這一篇文章。

In this very creative story, a witch turns a boy into a cat, and his cat becomes him. One of the first sentences says: "The old lady in the pointed hat came in through my bedroom window." Let's make a syntax tree for this sentence step by step. 這個富有創意的故事敘述巫婆把小男孩變成貓以後所發生的事情，開頭有一句話說 "The old lady in the pointed hat came in through my bedroom window."我們來為這句話畫樹狀圖吧：

First, we need to mark the Parts of Speech:

Next, we need to put the words into groups. Let's look at the nouns first. There are two ADJ-N groups and one N-N group. These are bigger than nouns, but smaller than Noun Phrases, so we'll mark them N' (N-Bar):

The three N-Bars go together with determiners to form Noun Phrases (NP):

The two prepositions (in, through) and the Noun Phrases (NP2, NP3) go together to form Prepositional Phrases (PP):

The verb came and the adverb in come together to form a V-Bar:

NP1 and PP1 form a Noun Phrase (NP); V-Bar and PP2 form a Verb Phrase (VP):

Finally, the NP and the VP come together to form a sentence (S):

Syntax Tree: NP--The old lady in the pointed hat came in through my bedroom window

Syntax Tree: Notice how PP-1 {in the pointed hat } is like an adjective. PP-1 modifies NP-2 {The old lady}    || PP-2 {through my bedroom window} is like an adverb. PP-2 modifies V' {came in}

If you have a question about this syntax tree, please leave a comment below. Thank you!